


Lay Us in the Dusty Earth

by shakespearespaz



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode s01e18: Clue, F/M, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-12 21:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel stopped caring after the explosion, after she had only succeeded in killing more people.</p>
<p>The only life she cared about lay alive and astounded and as broken as she across the dirty carpet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Rachel stopped caring after the explosion, after she had only succeeded in killing more people.

The only life she cared about lay alive and astounded and as broken as she across the dirty carpet.

The heavy man on top of her, the one who had pried her determined fingers from her release and revenge and flung the salvation far away, shifted. His knee dug into her ribs somewhere but even if she felt it she didn’t.

Monroe was alive.

She was alive.

This was no full circle, no poetic justice, no cleansing flash of fire and termination. There were only two watery blue eyes locking in shared despair.

In some reality she felt herself being lifted, dragged to the heavy brass bed and tightly handcuffed to it, but her nerve endings had stopped working, expect for the burning spot where Bass’ hand brushed against hers. He had reached up from the floor to find her.

“Rachel—”

The shadow above her had to be him. His voice was small, weak from the wind being knocked out of him.

Unfocused, her eyes danced around the room, lost before they found him.

There was anger, exhaustion, resignation, anguish but she could not find a trace of relief etched in his face.

“Kill me.”

Her voice was so much stronger than his; it had become her mantra with every aching step. She was done with her sick game, the one where she forced life by promising herself death. But now the endgame was in shredded pieces in a sandy tent.

This wasn’t where she was supposed to be, how she was supposed to be.

The only irony was that fate had gotten the who right.

To her surprise he kneeled calmly, his arm extending, and his hand uncurled from its tense fist to trail along her wet cheeks, drifting down to wrap his fingers snugly around her pale neck.

He started to tighten.

This was all wrong.

“No—” he expelled in a breath held in for too long. He leaned forward, collapsing sweaty brow against brow.

“You don’t get to go if I don’t.”

She wasn’t going to plead.

“If you don’t have the balls then—then get the hell away from me.” The words were paced and low and the tears not far behind.

“No.”

She was trembling, then shaking, her head followed by her shoulders and torso pulling and writhing and sobbing away from him.

Bass struggled with her.

“You don’t get to die and you don’t get to leave me,” he breathed into her ear.

“You have my blood on your hands,” sounded an empty, hiccupping voice, “and Danny and Ben and Charlie and Miles…” She croaked out the names, the faces and memories lost somewhere along the way.

“Miles?” he repeated into her hair, “Miles has abandoned both of us.”

He shifted and gave her the opportunity. She dug her nails through his pants to the soft flesh of his inner thigh with an angry cry.

He recoiled.

“You can hold me when I’m dead,” she spat at him.

He blinked at her, pausing only for a moment until he surged forward and cinched the handcuffs tighter, squeezing until he broke the skin and blood dripped down her arm and stained the cuffs of her militia jacket.

“I’ll see to it that you never die, but everyone you love does. I’ll be the only one left to hold you.”

This was the Bass she’d only ever glimpsed—power mad and paranoid and vicious and out of control.

“Just like you.”

She didn’t need to put any hate behind it.

“You’re the one wearing my uniform.”

“Then take it off. I know you’d like to.”

All she wanted to do was enrage him, keep him cold and cruel. It was simpler; if death wasn’t an option she’d take anything that made life worthless.

Instead, he captured her red, stained hands, tenderly kissing and caressing them. She went limp.

“I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you,” played under the scene, under Rachel’s ragged breaths as he tried to comfort and claim her in his own perverse way.

She didn’t know where he would have gone or how far or if she would have stopped him or if he would have let her strangle him.

But they were interrupted by the steady whooping of distant helicopter blades moving closer.

Bass released her and stood. Instantly, Rachel pulled herself in, wrapping her arms around her knees and ignoring her arguing, twisting gut asking what happens next.

If she grew into a ball of flesh small enough, maybe Bass would mistake her for just another grain of sand on the expensive rug.

“It’s not one of ours,” informed a captain hurriedly ducking into the tent, his coat singed and bloody from the aftermath of the explosion, “I thought I saw former Major Neville.”

“Find out who else is with him,” Bass barked at him.

He glanced back at Rachel.

With bloody hands and wide, hurt eyes, she looked practically sacrificial. That was what she had tried to do, wasn’t it? Sacrifice her own life for revenge.

Shame and desire wrenched at Bass and he wished he could someday be as brave and cowardly as her.

He started towards the open flap as a round of gunfire broke out over the chaos ensuing outside. The same captain was back before he could make it out.

“It’s Miles, sir.”

It was Rachel’s voice that answered him.

“What?”

“It’s him and Clayton and Neville and his son and the blonde girl.”

“Charlie—” Monroe corrected.

“They’re headed towards the Tower, but the entire camp is confusion right now, sir.”

“Well, go fix it.”

After the sharp order, the flustered man headed back out.

“No. No, no…” Rachel was barely keeping it together, her face a tight mask that fell as she shook her head and buried it in her knees. “They’re not supposed to be—they can’t be here. Miles, you idiot, you idiot…”

Bass’ feet had found roots in the floor, as the world spun around him. It was all happening so quickly. Rachel and then Miles…

Maybe Rachel was too desperate to see it, but Miles had come for her.

Not for the stupid Tower—he would have been there earlier. Not for his old friend turned enemy—Miles always knew where to find Bass.

He had come for _her._

It would destroy Miles if he killed her; Bass knew because he’d watched it happen once. If only they could understand that he wanted neither dead. He just didn’t want them alive if they weren't with him.

The sound of heavy fabric against heavy fabric moved behind him.

“Uncuff her, Bass.”

The gods had either cursed him or answered his prayers.


	2. Chapter 2

“Uncuff her, I said.”

Bass turned. 

Miles’ tired and scowling eyes met his.

The key was wordlessly retrieved from Bass' pocket and he dropped it on the floor with disinterest.

“Step out of the way,” Miles ordered.

“You going to kill me this time, Miles?”

“Eventually.”

A light, condescending laugh was all Monroe had left.

“Rachel almost did it for you.”

Miles’ gaze flickered away from Bass and to the woman beyond them. Rachel was quiet, watching the two men. She sat awkwardly, propped against the bed and her expression arrested somewhere between hope and the crushing realization that it was _them_.

She’d ended the world on her own, but it had taken both of them to make her twisted enough to pull the pin on that grenade.

Rachel had loved both of them once and that that was their weakness clawed at her wasted brain.

They loved too much and too fast and with everything they had and when they fell of course it destroyed because none of them fell so much as pummeled together off the metaphorical cliff in sheer devotion.

Hitting the ground hurt like hell.

Bass was forced rudely against the wall at sword point, and Miles kept him in view as he moved towards the back of the tent, towards the bed.

Rachel found her voice.

“What the hell possessed you to bring my daughter here?” she hissed at him as he kneeled to free her.

“You could be a little more grateful for your rescue,” he shot back, “I had to fly a damn helicopter.”

She swallowed drily and glanced at Bass and then back to Miles.

“I told you to take care of her. Why are you here?”

His fingers traced her injured wrist, Bass’ lips in the same spot a vivid memory.

“I told you I wasn’t letting you do this.”

He lifted her to her feet, resisting the urge to fold his arms around her. They weren’t alone and none of them were about to forget that.

“You should know, Miles. She tried to blow me up—by walking in here with a live grenade.”

Bass was still standing to the side of the tent. He hadn’t moved for his gun or called for help. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. He just stood there, a difficult laugh trickling from his lips.

“God, we both wished she had.”

He didn’t know who to look at, so his eyes floated across them both, icy blue and lost.

“Rachel?”

Miles’ question was light but concerned.

“You have Charlie,” she muttered, “What do I have?”

“You’re not dying for him.” Miles nodded towards the figure across from them.

“She seems to think I’m worth it.” Bass grasped onto one last quip. “She came back for more.”

Rachel surged forward, colliding with him, and her deft hands made it easily to his gun holster.

Monroe lifted his arms as she pressed the weapon into his stomach. He wished he could feel the cold metal against his skin; he could imagine how warm her hands were on the other side, twitching against the trigger.

They had always been like this, connection so palpable yet never there.

Miles slide in behind her, his face dark and heavy. His arm wrapped around hers with the gun either in restraint or support.

“Miles—leave me alone.”

She was as emotionless as when she first stepped into the tent with her light “hey.”

“No.”

“Miles, goddammit—it’s my—”

“No, it’s not, Rachel.” Bass smiled assuredly down at her. “Do it.”

“Come on.” Miles tugged at Rachel’s arm. He wouldn’t confront Bass; he hadn’t come for that and if he let himself, there would be no return for him either. “Let’s not do this. Let’s find another way, Rache.”

“You mean don’t do what you never had the guts to,” she snarled at the man behind her.

There were three bullets in the gun.

Monroe would never recover from three shots directly to the stomach.

One for Danny, one for Ben and one for herself.

An alternative nagged at her brain.

One for Bass, one for Miles and one for herself.

She could end everything then and there. No one would care who was good or bad or had hurt the other two too deeply to tell or tried to reach down to pull them back to light or whether they had succeeded or failed.

It would just be three bullets and three silent corpses and finally peace.

“ _No._ ”

Miles breathed the answer softly against her hair as the answer lodged itself in her mind.

She retreated, the gun falling from the solid form. Miles pulled her back a few steps.

“You want to die, Bass?” she asked slowly.

He wasn’t looking at her anymore, although the difference was slight. Bass was watching Miles over Rachel’s shoulder, waiting for Miles, following Miles, like he had always done.

“Yes,” he told him.

Rachel dropped the gun.

“I won’t give that to you.”

He broke.

The tears streamed downward and his legs folded as exhaustion clutched at him. They had reached a standstill again; the gears turned, the hate spewed, but they went nowhere.

Miles stooped to the gun.

“Miles—” Rachel warned.

He kneeled in front of his friend.

The gun hung between them, a cruel reminder, a hope, an end.

“Please—Miles,” drifted from his twisted mouth, “I never wanted this.”

This was the tent, the soldiers, the empire and the encircled letter that burned the skin and minds of all three.

He took another gasping breath.

Rachel didn’t breathe.

She waited for the shot that never came.

Instead, Miles dropped the gun and forced himself to collect Bass into his arms. Bass clutched at his jacket, and Miles’ eyes wrenched shut in conflict. No weapons, only two worn men and the pain and the years and the gentle rising and falling of their shoulders as they inhaled and then exhaled together.

Rachel’s blood still glistened on their lips and fingertips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? End it there? Try to figure out logistically how the three can coexists?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a little bit more after Miles came in, but it made more dramatic sense to stop it here and just focus on these two. I could finish up the continued interaction, however, and add another chapter if anyone was interested.


End file.
